Gun Policy News

Gun violence, gun control and small arms

A policeman's handgun went off accidentally when two officers held a safety demonstration at a kindergarten in China to mark International Children's Day, injuring one child and four parents, authorities said.
A gun discharged accidentally and a bullet hit the ground, sending shards of cement flying into the air, wounding five people, said police authorities in Zhengzhou, in the central province of Henan.
They had injuries to their arms and legs and were rushed to... (GunPolicy.org)

Cooperation with other countries is being intensified to combat arms smuggling, according to an official at the General Administration of Customs.
Last year, Chinese customs officials investigated 50 cases of smuggling involving firearms and ammunition, an increase of 16.3 percent from the previous year.
Authorities confiscated 5,916 guns, 882 gun parts and 13,000 rounds of ammunition in these cases.
"The smuggling of drugs or firearms poses serious threats to... (GunPolicy.org)

BIASHA, China – A rifle shot tears the air of a mountain hamlet — met not with terror but cries of delight in China's only remaining village where authorities encourage gun ownership.
"We start carrying guns from about 15 years old," said Jia Xinshan, fingering a wooden rifle's trigger as tourists snapped pictures of him in a shiny black coat. "We're the last gun tribe in China."
The armaments in Biasha, a village tucked amid the wooded peaks of Guizhou province,... (GunPolicy.org)

BEIJING - Police in China are set to receive firearms training as part of a nationwide plan to boost armed patrols, state media said Tuesday, after a string of high-profile violent incidents.
China announced last month that it plans to roll out armed patrols across the country following a spate of violence, including a knife attack in the southwestern city of Kunming on March 1 which left 33 people dead.
The country's stability-obsessed Communist leadership responds... (GunPolicy.org)

GUIZHOU - Police in southwest China's Guizhou Province have seized a record number of illegal guns and knives in a cross-province raid that also captured 15 suspects, China Daily reported on Monday.
The police busted a gang involving in manufacturing and selling weapons and confiscated about 15,000 guns and 120,000 controlled knives.
It was the largest such seizure ever in China, the newspaper said.
The police found out after a four-month investigation that the... (GunPolicy.org)

Best known as the director of the 2008 South African crime film Jerusalema and for his music video work with such top stars as Tony Braxton and Michael Jackson, Ralph Ziman's new art installation Ghosts is a powerful comment on the global arms trade and the worship of guns in South African society.
The work includes an extraordinary series of photographs showing men dressed in Day-Glo outfits toting wire-and-bead AK-47s, which are exhibited alongside the imitation... (GunPolicy.org)

BEIJING - China's Ministry of Public Security (MPS) on Friday launched a campaign against crimes involving guns and explosives.
In a videophone conference on Friday, the ministry said the situation of crimes involving guns and explosives in the country is still serious, urging police nationwide to check all leads so as to seize as many guns and explosives as possible.
Under Chinese law, members of the public are banned from owning firearms and explosives. The police... (GunPolicy.org)

In recent years, as order in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) eroded between uprisings and armed conflicts, the desire for arms amongst a wide range of actors became one more destabilizing factor in the complexities of each situation.
However, arms proliferation is nothing new to the MENA region. Whether it was through state actors or black market trading, weapons have circulated throughout the Middle East and North Africa for many years.
Today, arms... (GunPolicy.org)

China unveiled dramatic details of charges against a former mining magnate on Thursday, accusing him of crimes ranging from murder to gun-running and extortion as part of a "mafia-style" gang he led.
In an announcement carried by the official Xinhua news agency, prosecutors in central China said they had laid charges against the former chairman of Hanlong Mining, which had tried to take over Australia's Sundance Resources Ltd.
Police last year announced the detention... (GunPolicy.org)

A bill to ratify the Arms Trade Treaty, the first international pact to regulating trade in conventional arms, is scheduled to be submitted to the Diet by the end of this month, government sources said.
The measure, coming less than a year after Japan signed the treaty adopted at the U.N. General Assembly last April, underscores Tokyo's eagerness to nudge others to join the framework, the sources said Saturday.
However, the move appears incongruous with the stance of... (GunPolicy.org)

A recent court verdict in Bangladesh in a case almost 10 years old has brought into focus the continuing scourge of weapons-smuggling from China into South Asia.
A judge in the Bangladesh port city of Chittagong last week sentenced 14 men to death for their role in what was an aborted bid to smuggle in 1,500 boxes of weapons that needed ten trucks to carry.
Among those sentenced were a prominent Bangladesh opposition leader, Motiur Rahman Nizami, several top... (GunPolicy.org)

European Union countries licensed arms exports in 2012 valued at €39.9 billion, according to newly released figures. This included a record €9.7 billion in sales to the Middle East – a 22 percent increase on sales in the previous year.
The statistics are revealed in the Fifteenth Annual Report on Control of Exports of Military Technology and Equipment.
The European Network Against the Arms Trade (ENAA) says that the figures show little change in arms export... (GunPolicy.org)

KUNMING - A man shot six people dead and wounded three more as he took revenge against his wife's lovers in southwest China's Yunnan Province on Thursday afternoon, local police said on Friday.
The suspect, Shao Zongqi, 38, is now wanted by the police of Tengchong county.
Shao, who is from the village of Qingkou, is suspected of carrying out the killing with a semi-automatic rifle before escaping in a cross-country vehicle.
When Shao discovered that his wife had been... (GunPolicy.org)

SHANGHAI - A man stood trial in a court in east China's Shanghai on Monday for allegedly killing six and injuring four others with guns and an iron pipe in June last year.
The defendant, Fan Jieming, 63, was charged with murder, robbery, and forcible seizure, illegal purchase and possession of guns, according to the Shanghai No. 2 Intermediate People's Court.
The trial opened at around 9:30 a.m. and continued on Monday afternoon.
On June 22, Fan allegedly beat a... (GunPolicy.org)

[Translated summary: Around 60% of legal guns traced in El Salvador originate in the US according to ATF data. The US has a similar tracing system in place with Honduras and Guatemala. 70% of El Salvador's homicides are committed with firearms. Many of these guns are bought legally in America and trafficked to El Salvador.]
Cerca de 60% das armas legais rastreadas em El Salvador têm sua origem nos Estados Unidos. O dado, obtido graças a um programa de colaboração... (GunPolicy.org)

Egyptian customs authorities on Saturday seized firearms and ammunition in containers coming from the United States, Turkey and China.
Two Beirut-bound containers were found at the Alexandria port carrying 2,400 rifles of different types, said the head of the Egyptian Customs Authority Mohamed el-Salhawy.
Another two shipments of fireworks arrived at Dekheila port. They were imported under a fake request of medical supplies. Meantime, four containers were seized at... (GunPolicy.org)

GUANGZHOU - A former political advisor of Shenzhen City was sentenced to 14 years behind bars for bribery and holding illegal weapons by a court in south China's Guangdong Province on Friday.
Huang Zhiguang, former vice chairman of the Shenzhen Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, took bribes in exchange for promotions, Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court ruled.
He also helped Zhan, president of a local company, with his business,... (GunPolicy.org)

CASABLANCA - Last August, the police managed to arrest Chinese criminals who attempted to assassinate a Chinese citizen at Casablanca's Derb Omar. Recently, the police announced the dismantling of a mafia network, which is this time originally from Europe.
According to MAP, the National Team of Judicial Police managed, with the assistance of the Directorate of Territorial Surveillance (DST), to dismantle criminal networks active in the field of cross-border organized... (GunPolicy.org)

Peng Di (pseudonym), an engineer from Wuhan, Central China's Hubei Province, did not expect to spend the rest of his life in prison or face the death penalty, for a hobby.
Despite the fact that China has many gun enthusiasts, the hobby has its risks. Peng went further than simply studying guns and decided to buy 1,300 air gun pellets online from a US vendor in 2011.
Peng was charged with smuggling ammunition after he bought over 1,000 non-military bullets from... (GunPolicy.org)

A police officer was detained on Wednesday for fatally shooting a pregnant restaurant owner because she did not serve milk tea in Guigang, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, the Beijing Youth Daily reported.
The police officer, 33, surnamed Hu, came to the victim's restaurant on Monday evening while intoxicated. Hu asked the owner if they had milk tea, and when told that they didn't, he shot her and her husband. The woman and her fetus died after being sent to hospital.... (GunPolicy.org)

WASHINGTON - On Tuesday, the largest deregulation in the history of U.S. arms exports took place as part of the Barack Obama administration's export reform initiative.
But a day after the new reforms came into effect, former government officials and critics from the human rights community are warning of the serious human rights consequences and of the negative long-term impact for U.S. foreign policy.
The reforms are part of the Export Control Reform Initiative (ECRI)... (GunPolicy.org)

BEIJING - Chinese police in 164 cities have destroyed hundreds of thousands of confiscated guns, knives and detonators, a statement from the Ministry of Public Security said on Tuesday.
About 130,000 illegal shotguns and air guns, 670,000 replica guns, 460,000 forbidden knives and many illegally stored detonators have been destroyed as part of an annual nationwide campaign, the statement said.
Crimes related to guns and explosives continued to fall by 41.4 percent and... (GunPolicy.org)

A pioneering United Nations treaty aimed at regulating the global trade in conventional weapons surpassed a symbolically important threshold on Wednesday when 18 countries, most notably the United States, officially signed the document, pushing the total number to more than half of the organization's member states.
Proponents of the treaty, which was adopted overwhelmingly by the 193-member General Assembly in April, but still required signing and ratification, said... (GunPolicy.org)

NEW DELHI - In a significant breakthrough that could provide the first evidence of alleged Chinese involvement in supply of arms to Indian insurgent outfits, Thailand on Saturday picked up a key middleman whose identity had been disclosed by arrested NSCN (I-M) operative Anthony Shimray.
Indian Express report stated that Willy Naruenartwanicha, referred to as Willy Narue by Shimray, is a Thai national and was picked up at India's request. According to Shimray, Willy... (GunPolicy.org)

Police destroyed more than 300 confiscated firearms Tuesday outside a steel plant in Baoshan district.
The seized weapons were the fruit of a citywide campaign to reduce crimes with dangerous weapons, according to a press release from the Shanghai Municipal Public Security Bureau. Police also confiscated about 13,000 bullets, 2,200 controlled knives and blades, and 340 pellet guns.
"We seized some of the guns at security inspection points, like the ones at train... (GunPolicy.org)

A judge has ordered the destruction of nearly 13,000 AK47 rifles associated with jailed York arms dealer Gary Hyde – after turning down a request for them to be deactivated for use in films.
Former special constable Hyde, 42, was jailed for seven years last December for overseeing an £800,000 consignment of rifles, 9mm pistols, rifles and bullets, from China to Nigeria in 2007.
The businessman, from Newton-on-Derwent, east of York, "put two fingers up" to strict... (GunPolicy.org)

Shanghai witnessed an unlucky and uneasy week with a chemical plant explosion injuring six on Monday, the latest H7N9 bird flu death on Wednesday and a stampede at Tongji University when David Beckham paid a visit there last Thursday. But none of these incidents were as shocking as the Saturday night gun shooting spree in suburban Baoshan district, which claimed six lives in total.
Although we hear of shooting rampages in the US from time to time, where gun control is... (GunPolicy.org)

A shooting spree in Shanghai on Saturday killed six people. This brutal killing once again prompted debates over gun control in China. One day later, the Ministry of Public Security held an urgent conference, vowing to crack down on firearm crimes. The ministry will launch a comprehensive campaign on firearm management and make efforts to solve this problem.
Guns are strictly controlled in China. According to related regulations, guns are allocated only to specific... (GunPolicy.org)

A 62-year-old man is in custody for killing six people at a chemical plant in Shanghai's Baoshan District on Saturday evening. The man, surname Fan, shot and killed five of his victims, and beat one to death. According to Xinhua, the massacre was initiated by "a financial dispute" between Fan and coworker.
After beating the coworker to death,
He [Fan] then took a hunting rifle hidden in his dormitory and asked a driver to drive him to a different district. He gunned... (GunPolicy.org)

Shanghai No.1 Intermediate People's Court sentenced a Zhejiang Province man to death with a reprieve Thursday for smuggling of firearms and ammunition from the US into China.
The primary defendant, Wang Ting, 33, was one of 17 people sentenced Thursday for smuggling or illegally possessing firearms. The other defendants received prison sentences ranging from 15 years to 19 months.
By giving Wang a death sentence with a reprieve, the court will postpone his execution... (GunPolicy.org)

British arms dealer Gary Hyde has admitted helping smuggle illegal AK-47 magazines into the United States for sale by a Chili-based firearms wholesaler, federal court records show.
Hyde signed a plea agreement in late April but it was not filed until this week, records show.
Hyde admitted that he had helped alter the markings on the 5,760 magazines so their country of origin — China — would not be known. In the U.S., there is a federal ban on the importation of... (GunPolicy.org)

Local police in Lufeng, Guangdong Province have detained a number of gun-wielding thugs involved in a gang fight in Songzhu village Sunday, in which more than 10 villagers were injured, including a 14-year-old boy.
Four villagers, including Songzhu village chief Liu Changmao, are in criminal detention.
Local residents were unhappy with the distribution of compensation from a land acquisition deal, believing that Liu and his younger brothers had schemed to take more... (GunPolicy.org)

Six years after approving German-made rifles that can be converted to machine guns "in minutes" – guns that by law should have been prohibited to begin with – the federal government will spend up to $260,000 buying them from their owners.
In February 2007, the RCMP classified the SSD BD38, a semi-automatic replica of a German Second World War-era sub-machine gun, as a 'restricted' firearm, meaning that it had the same legal status as a handgun. That classification... (GunPolicy.org)

A drug user who shot a man in the leg with a homemade gun after a quarrel was sentenced to 33 months in prison, a local court ruled yesterday.
The shooter, Chen Rongbin, 34, was convicted of three crimes including intentional injury, illegal possession of firearms and illegal possession of drugs, Hongkou District People's Court officials said.
Prosecutors said Chen was playing a game on a machine in a game room at 710 Tangshan Road at 8pm on December 16. He had a... (GunPolicy.org)

ABIDJAN - Côte d'Ivoire's recent turbulence - including the ouster of president Henri Konan Bédié in 1999, a long-running insurgency and deadly poll unrest in 2011 - has left the country awash in arms, which have contributed to human rights abuses, widespread crime and persistent insecurity.
Two years after coming to power in 2000, Laurent Gbagbo's administration faced an army mutiny, which morphed into a full-scale rebellion. In response, the government underwent a... (GunPolicy.org)

There is no consensus on an international arms trade treaty, major weapons exporter China said on Wednesday, after it abstained as the UN General Assembly passed the measure by 154 votes to three.
The only votes against the first treaty on the conventional arms trade were from Syria, North Korea and Iran.
The 23 countries abstaining included Russia and China, ranked respectively as the number two and five weapons exporters by the Stockholm International Peace Research... (GunPolicy.org)

NEW DELHI - New Delhi is set to reject a global arms trade treaty (ATT) since the agreement is heavily loaded against weapons-importing countries like India, and let exporting nations like the US and China call the shots. The treaty, meant to regulate all transfers of conventional arms around the world, is likely to be passed by the UN General Assembly next week. India's inability to establish an indigenous defence production industry may now become a strategic... (GunPolicy.org)

Reckless and illegal arms supplies from Europe, Africa and China to the warring parties in Côte d'Ivoire over the past decade continue to fuel grave human rights abuses and violent crime in the country, Amnesty International said in a detailed report launched at the United Nations (UN) headquarters.
The 33-page report, Communities shattered by arms proliferation and abuse in Côte d'Ivoire, documents how a handful of states and a network of multinational arms... (GunPolicy.org)

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon has urged the world's nations to agree on a strong UN treaty to regulate the multibillion-dollar global arms trade in the next two weeks, saying it will save lives and make it more difficult for warlords, organised criminals and terrorists to obtain weapons.
Hopes of reaching agreement on what would be a landmark treaty were dashed last July when the United States said it needed more time to consider the proposed accord - a... (GunPolicy.org)

In the shadow of the re-energized gun-control debate in the United States, negotiators at the United Nations will reconvene this week to try to reach a final agreement on a treaty to regulate the global trade in conventional weapons, a lucrative business that rights groups call the main source of illicit arms fueling deadly conflicts around the world.
"I am confident that member states will overcome their differences and muster the political will needed to agree on... (GunPolicy.org)

The National Rifle Association, which is battling a raft of gun control measures on Capitol Hill, also has an international fight on its hand as it gears up to oppose a U.N. treaty designed to restrict the flow of arms to conflict zones.
Negotiations open Monday in New York on the Arms Trade Treaty, which would require countries to determine whether weapons they sell would be used to commit serious human rights violations, terrorism or transnational organized... (GunPolicy.org)

It is estimated at least half a million people are killed with guns every year and on average a further 200,000 men, women and children die as an indirect result of armed conflicts and violence that are frequently fuelled by the uncontrolled flow of small arms.
And for every person that is killed in an armed conflict, many more are injured and tortured, raped, abused, forcibly disappeared, taken hostage or displaced. Even more have their access to food, water, shelter,... (GunPolicy.org)

Much is being written and said in the media and academic circles about China's increasing engagement with Africa on many economic and other fronts.
Some see this as benefiting Africa; others as detrimental to the real needs of African countries and peoples. Some critics have used phrases like "the second scramble for Africa" and "re-colonization of Africa" to describe the new development. The debate goes on.
Yet, there is one subject that has not received the serious... (GunPolicy.org)

The first clues appeared in Kenya, Uganda and what is now South Sudan. A British arms researcher surveying ammunition used by government forces and civilian militias in 2006 found Kalashnikov rifle cartridges he had not seen before. The ammunition bore no factory code, suggesting that its manufacturer hoped to avoid detection.
Within two years other researchers were finding identical cartridges circulating through the ethnic violence in Darfur. Similar ammunition then... (GunPolicy.org)

MEXICO CITY - A lot of attention goes to the U.S.-made weapons in the hands of criminal groups in this Latin American country. But there is little talk of another problem: the large number of light weapons in the hands of civilians.
The Mexican Constitution establishes the people's right to "own guns in their homes for their safety and self-defence", with the exception of high caliber weapons, while the 1972 Federal Law on Firearms and Explosives stipulates the... (GunPolicy.org)

Want to buy illegal drugs in China? No problem – just go to the wild and woolly Internet here and order a $50 or $100 package of methamphetamines, ecstasy or cocaine. It'll be delivered to your door within hours!
"Our company has delivery stations in every part of China," boasts one Chinese-language website, with photos of illegal narcotics it sells. "We offer 24-hour delivery service to your door, and we have long-term and consistent supplies. If you just make one... (GunPolicy.org)

Announcing Wednesday that he would send proposals on reducing gun violence in America to Congress, President Obama mentioned a number of sensible gun-control measures. But he also paid homage to the Washington conventional wisdom about the many and varied causes of this calamity — from mental health issues to school safety. His spokesman, Jay Carney, had said earlier that this is "a complex problem that will require a complex solution." Gun control, Carney added, is... (GunPolicy.org)

LONDON — A British arms dealer who helped ship thousands of assault rifles and millions of rounds of ammunition from China to Nigeria has been sentenced to seven years in jail.
Gary Hyde was convicted on two counts of breaching U.K. trade controls and concealing criminal property for moving the weapons without a license and hiding more than 620,000 pounds ($1 million) in commission payments.
While the 2006 deal between the Chinese and Nigerian governments was... (GunPolicy.org)

Seventeen suspects involved in cross-border weapons smuggling went on trial yesterday at the Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People's Court.
The defendants were charged with part or all of three crimes: illegal smuggling, possession and trade of weapons and ammunition.
The suspects were arrested in June after a Sino-US joint law enforcement operation cracked the arms smuggling network.
Most of the defendants are gun enthusiasts and shooting fans, authorities said. They... (GunPolicy.org)

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — China's aggressive new strategy to sell weapons in Africa was on clear display at a recent defense exposition here.
The pavilion for Chinese manufacturers was among the three largest at the Africa Aerospace and Defense exhibition in September, surpassed only by host South Africa and the United States, the world's largest weapons maker by far.
Many of the made-in-China weapons touted by firms such as Norinco and Poly Technologies were... (GunPolicy.org)

LONDON — A London court yesterday convicted a British arms dealer of organising a big illegal shipment of weapons to Nigeria.
Gary Hyde, a 43-year-old retired British volunteer police constable, was found guilty of helping to organise illegal shipment of 40,000 AK47 assault rifles, 30,000 rifles, 10,000 pistols and 32 million rounds of ammunition from China to Nigeria.
He was convicted by a jury and will be sentenced on 23 November at the Southwark Crown Court, the... (GunPolicy.org)

Police in Huai'an City of Jiangsu Province busted a gun-dealing ring and seized seven suspects and more than 6,000 guns from two underground workshops and two warehouses, Xinhua reported yesterday.
Police received a tip-off in March that an online dealer was selling model guns, and discovered that the guns were lethal and banned by China's gun-control laws.
The dealer, surnamed Chen, was caught March 26 in Shenyang, the capital of northeastern China's Liaoning... (GunPolicy.org)

Jakarta Police arrested two men accused of selling unlicensed airsoft guns on social networking sites last week.
The men, identified only as "D" and "A.G.," were stood next to a table of realistic-looking airsoft guns in a press conference on Monday.
Police seized 187 airsoft guns, including replicas of pistols and assault rifles, in the raid.
"They sold the guns at fairly low prices, from Rp 3 million ($312) to Rp 6 million for the [assault rifles]," Jakarta... (GunPolicy.org)

BEIJING - Chinese police have busted a serious online gun and ammunition-selling network, according to an announcement by the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) on Thursday.
Under the direct command of the MPS, 29 provincial police departments recently conducted joint operations in the case, arresting over 530 suspects and confiscating more than 1,000 guns, over 10,000 bullets and a large quantity of accessories, the MPS said.
China enforces an extremely strict policy... (GunPolicy.org)

A drug addict armed with a pistol held a woman hostage in Southwest China's Sichuan Province and opened fire on passersby, in a rare outburst of gun violence that shocked the nation.
Police shot the drug-crazed gunman dead on a highway in Guangyuan, northern Sichuan on Sunday after a 12-hour standoff, local police said.
One of the passersby was slightly wounded in the abdomen. The hostage was frightened but suffered no injuries, Luo Hong, a publicity official with... (GunPolicy.org)

Army on Thursday said it has found over 100 assorted weapons of Chinese make near the Line of Control (LoC) in Keran sector of Kashmir.
"More than 100 weapons, including 98 pistols, have been seized near the Line of Control in Keran Sector of Kupwara district," an army spokesman said.
He said the recoveries included 10 AK rifles and two assault rifles of other makes.
"The weapons are of Chinese make and the packing material like newspapers are also Chinese," the... (GunPolicy.org)

NEW YORK - A former member of the U.S. National Guard on Thursday pleaded guilty to smuggling shipments of firearms from New York City to China, federal prosecutors said.
Joseph Debose, 30, formerly a staff sergeant with a unit of the U.S. Special Forces National Guard, was arrested in May in a sting operation by federal agents in North Carolina, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Brooklyn. At the time of his arrest, he was carrying a .45 caliber pistol and 12... (GunPolicy.org)

UNITED NATIONS — China's arms exports have surged over the past decade, flooding sub-Saharan Africa with a new source of cheap assault rifles and ammunition and exposing Beijing to international scrutiny as its lethal wares wind up in conflict zones in violation of U.N. sanctions.
Weapons from China have surfaced in a string of U.N. investigations in war zones stretching from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to Ivory Coast, Somalia and Sudan. China is by no means... (GunPolicy.org)

When a global treaty to limit shady weapons sales gets swept up in the gun-control debate, it's clear that this country has a problem. A bloc of U.S. senators, chiefly Republicans with a sprinkling of Democrats, has managed to derail a U.N. treaty to restrict weapons sales between countries.
The reasoning is spurious and shameful, a political play on distrust of the United Nations and unfounded fears about a loss of domestic gun rights. But the threat was enough to... (GunPolicy.org)

Liberia's President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said on Thursday that Africa will face more conflict like her country's devastating civil war unless arms trade treaty negotiators produce a tough accord.
The Nobel Peace Prize winning president told envoys negotiating a deal that they had "a once in a lifetime opportunity to agree tough controls on the arms trade."
"The Liberian experience and other experiences in Africa and other parts of the world show that without such a... (GunPolicy.org)

Early on July 1, a 48-year-old factory boss surnamed Nan was shot through the head while on the way to do his morning exercise in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province. He later died in hospital. Police later announced that they found the murderer surnamed Lin who was found dead with a gun beside his body. The two were involved in a dispute over money that resulted in the murder.
The case sparked fresh concerns on gun use in China, coming so shortly after the country launched an... (GunPolicy.org)

JOHANNESBURG — For a couple of hundred dollars or less an arms dealer can illegally source a blank end user certificate with the required signatures and stamps - needed to transfer weapons across international borders - and "if no one checks its authenticity (often the case) he can ship his wares to the world's hotspots with minimal risk, for maximum profit," a report by the Small Arms Survey (SAS) said in 2008.
Since then "not much has changed" Glenn McDonald, based... (GunPolicy.org)

The world is awash in conventional weapons, like tanks, firearms and aircraft, with the market valued at $40 billion to $60 billion a year. Far too many of these arms are fueling conflicts and atrocities in Syria, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and beyond. They have been used to kill countless innocent civilians, and they will be used against countless more if the international community does not find a way to keep them out of the hands of unscrupulous regimes,... (GunPolicy.org)

Britain is to push for ammunition sales to be covered by new international arms trade controls despite strong resistance from the US.
The UK sees the inclusion of ammunition as an essential element of the proposed Arms Trade Treaty and will negotiate hard for it when a month-long conference opens at the United Nations in New York next week.
But the British delegation faces opposition from a number of countries including China, Egypt and Syria but also its traditional... (GunPolicy.org)

JUBA — Amnesty International on Thursday accused China, Sudan and Ukraine of allegedly supplying military weapons to both South Sudanese Armed Forces (SPLA) and opposition groups, triggering scores of indiscriminate attacks in parts of South Sudan.
The organization, in its latest report, entitled South Sudan: Arms supplies fueling violations in forgotten conflict, examines the impact of responsible supplies and misuse of weapons, munitions and armaments that resulted... (GunPolicy.org)

[Translated summary: Associations, NGOs and hundreds of members of the global coalition "Control Arms" have set minimum specifications for the future Arms Trade Treaty. It will have to control all types of conventional arms and ammunition used by military as well as by law enforcement, since they can be used for serious human rights violations. ATT will include exports but also imports, transit and all types of transfers and all actors, such as arms brokers, like Viktor... (GunPolicy.org)

KARACHI - The legal and illegal sale of the light weapons in the violence-hit metropolis is skyrocketing as the target killers appear to have an inclination for using the arms that are lethal but handy. These small-sized deadly arms are: 9MM, 30 bore and .22 pistol.
According to police sources, in over 90 percent incidents of targeted killings in the city the killers had used small-size but highly sophisticated weapons during the last five months.
The sources said the... (GunPolicy.org)

In China, gun ownership as a percentage of the total population is very low, and urban shootings are rarely ever heard of. But authorities there are making efforts to combat illegal firearm ownership. That reveals a concern about the flow of weapons and arms to criminal organizations largely unknown to the country in the 1980s and 1990s.
Chinese authorities have stepped up efforts to combat organized crime, illicit trade, drug trafficking and border-area lawlessness... (GunPolicy.org)

Police in 150 Chinese cities destroyed more than 100,000 illegal guns on Tuesday, as part of an ongoing crackdown that officials say is dramatically reducing gun-related crime across the country.
As Ministry of Public Security officials also prepared to dispose of a further 250 tons of illegal explosives in the next few days, Vice-Minister of Public Security Huang Ming said the incidence of both crimes has been declining rapidly.
Gun-related crime has fallen 46... (GunPolicy.org)

BEIJING — Chinese police on Tuesday announced the arrests of 23 people as part of a joint U.S.-Chinese investigation into a gun trafficking ring that smuggled dozens of firearms into the country.
The arrests announced by the Ministry of Public Security follow the detention of three men in the United States last month in connection with the scheme. They included Joseph Debose of North Carolina, a staff sergeant in a U.S. National Guard special forces unit, along with... (GunPolicy.org)

DOCUMENT
1. China
There are few official statistics on the Chinese arms trade but the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimates that accounts for around 3 per cent of the global trade in conventional arms.
Countries supplied
Recipient countries over the past decade have tended to be developing countries with poor human rights records including Algeria, Angola, Bangladesh, DRC, Guinea, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kenya, Libya, Myanmar,... (GunPolicy.org)

The Libyan civil war of early 2011 was one of the bloodiest conflicts in recent history, with an estimated 30,000 killed and 50,000 injured. While Muammar Gaddafi's death marked a watershed moment in Libyan history, the months of frenzied violence that preceded it saw a massive buildup of arms and munitions in the country. In the months leading up to and after his fall, Gaddafi's arms warehouses all across the country became unsecured; such was the level of... (GunPolicy.org)

LONDON - States must set legally binding global rules on weapon and ammunition sales, aid agency Oxfam said on Tuesday, ahead of a United Nations summit to agree an arms treaty to prevent arms reaching human rights violators.
Citing the example of Syria, which has continued to receive arms shipments even as it is accused of killing more than 9,000 civilians in a crackdown on a popular uprising, Oxfam said it is vital that regulations on weapons sales are... (GunPolicy.org)

Mainland authorities have broken up a criminal ring that smuggled dozens of firearms into the country from Southeast Asia despite some of the world's toughest gun laws, Xinhua reported yesterday.
Police have arrested a 33-year-old Chinese man from Shantou , Guangdong - described by authorities as the ringleader - and another 13 suspects from Guangdong, Guangxi , Heilongjiang , Sichuan and Tianjin , the Ministry of Public Security said. The ringleader was arrested... (GunPolicy.org)

I often write a reflective piece to accompany the publication of the Amnesty International annual report on the state of the world's human rights, and as a result I have an archive of reflective pieces which read as a chronology of progress and problems charted over the last decade. We shall see whether the 2012 report will be the one that came just months before the world secured a binding, bulletproof arms trade treaty in the negotiations due to take place in July, or... (GunPolicy.org)

A U.S. federal court Thursday formally charged a Chinese national with taking part in a gun smuggling ring between the United States and China.
The court ordered Zhifu Lin to remain in jail until his next court appearance. Another Chinese national, Lilan Li, was arraigned earlier this month.
Federal agents also arrested a sergeant in the U.S. National Guard, Joseph Debose, for allegedly supplying the weapons.
The three are suspected of altered the serial numbers on... (GunPolicy.org)

KARACHI - There are an estimated 20 million illegal arms in circulation in Pakistan.
This includes serious firepower: law enforcement authorities are increasingly coming under attack from criminals and terrorists armed with heavy weapons such as grenades (including rocket-propelled ones), long-range sniper rifles and machine guns. The volatile situation in Lyari was a case in point, where despite the fact that police were equipped with tank-like armoured personnel... (GunPolicy.org)

The international arms trade has become the greatest threat to development and has to be controlled by a tough treaty to regulate weapons and munitions sales, a government minister warns.
In a speech to the Institute for Strategic Studies thinktank, Alan Duncan, the minister for international development, will urge allies such as the US to set aside their concerns and sign up to the comprehensive arms trade treaty (ATT), which will be hammered out during a month-long... (GunPolicy.org)

Black market explosives and pistols are advertised openly in the remote, mountainous Yunnan county where a mysterious suicide bomber killed three people and injured 16 last week, the South China Morning Post can reveal.
Most advertisers claim they can arrange delivery by car within an hour in central Kunming , the provincial capital, with guns handed over outside supermarkets and post offices.
Some advertisers also said they had delivery networks in remote counties.... (GunPolicy.org)

U.S. Marines at Camp Lejeune, N.C., stole and sold approximately $2 million in guns and combat equipment to streets gangs and to China and Russia, military officials confirmed. The stolen guns and combat gear included assault rifles, night-vision goggles and flashlights.
More than 60 people have been implicated in the incident, the Daily News in Jacksonville, N.C., reported. 47 service members and 21 civilians have been charged so far. Several of them have already... (GunPolicy.org)

On January 25 this year, 32-year-old Waqas, a garment factory employee was hit by a bullet in New Karachi and he died. The bullet was not fired from the gun of a target killer, but by friends of a bridegroom amidst late-night wedding celebrations.
Two children aged 10 and 12, died in Sialkot in a similar incident on February 20, when the jubilant brother of a bridegroom unleashed a burst of bullets.
Such accidents, almost an every-day affair in Pakistan, never make it... (GunPolicy.org)

GuangdongG police seized more than 700 guns, 20,000 replica weapons, 500,000 bullets and 6,000 knives in a campaign which took place from March 1 to April 15 targeting gun-related crimes.
Police also confiscated more than 300 kilograms of explosives, 200 meters of fuse and 600 detonators during the campaign, according to Zhang Yongqiang, deputy director general of Guangdong Provincial Department of Public Security.
"Most of the guns and replica weapons that have been... (GunPolicy.org)

Sweden's enterprise minster Annie Lööf has come in for heavy criticism following a blunder about Sweden's arms exports.
In an interview broadcast on Saturday on Sveriges Radio (SR), Lööf didn't rule out exporting arms to China – despite an arms embargo having been imposed on the country since 1989.
"If we don't export weapons to China, as far as pesticides or other equipment for instance, what consequences would that have," said Lööf on the air.
When asked... (GunPolicy.org)

[Translated summary: Notwithstanding risks of proliferation, small arms manufactured in Belgium circulate in Libya, Mali, and maybe tomorrow in Syria? Belgium is the biggest european exporter of small arms: in 2010, 32% of european exports of small arms to Middle East and North Africa came from this country.]
Malgré les mises en garde à Bruxelles sur les risques de prolifération, les armes légères fabriquées en Belgique circulent de la Libye au Mali. Et demain,... (GunPolicy.org)

The number of gun-related crimes is dropping rapidly nationwide, despite a recent spate of armed robberies, police say.
In 2000, police dealt with about 5,000 gun-related crimes across the country. The number dropped to about 500 in 2011, down 46 percent from 2010, according to the latest figures from the Ministry of Public Security.
The decrease is mainly due to China's strict policy on gun control and tougher policing measures, said Yan Zhengbin, deputy director of... (GunPolicy.org)

BEIJING - Police across China have been ordered to step up their war on crimes involving guns and explosives to safeguard social stability and public security.
Addressing a national conference on Monday, Huang Ming, deputy minister of public security, said police agencies at all levels must fully bear in mind the extreme importance of fighting gun and explosive-related crimes.
Huang urged coordinated efforts involving police in different sectors and regions to... (GunPolicy.org)

Guns and ammunition used by a South Sudanese ethnic militia that massacred a rival group earlier this year came from both the army and a rebel group, a report said on Thursday.
Beginning late December a marauding column of some 8 000 armed youths from the Lou Nuer people marched on the remote town of Pibor, home to the rival Murle, whom they blame for cattle raiding and have vowed to exterminate.
Analysis by the Small Arms Survey, a Swiss-based research group,... (GunPolicy.org)

Every year illicit trade in small arms results in thousands of deaths. Most of them in developing countries, including the Pacific, where the impact of gun violence has been devastating.
Now the international community is to meet at the United Nations to finalise the first ever global arms trade treaty.
HELEN HAKENA, WOMEN'S RIGHTS CAMPAIGNER: I was seven months pregnant when gunmen came into our village terrorising the entire village community. My house was burnt to... (GunPolicy.org)

NEW DELHI - Northeast outfits are employing crafty financial methods to procure arms worth millions of dollars and make them look like legitimate legal buys.
A series of arrests by the National Investigation Agency of militants from various outfits has revealed formulae that take the best financial brains to come up with.
A number of such devices tumbled out of the militants' closets after the NIA arrested NSCN (I-M) leader Anthony Shimray and over 20 United National... (GunPolicy.org)

The United Nations is urging all nations in the Asia region to implement concrete solutions to stop illegal trading in small arms and light weapons.
"Over the past decades, trade has made this region grow so phenomenally. If you are a region where international trade is what makes you tick, you better also make sure that you are seen as doing trade in the right way," UN disarmament affairs official Daniel Prins told reporters on the sidelines of opening the Asian... (GunPolicy.org)

After partition, Pakistan did not inherit any military production facilities. In 1951, the Pakistan Ordnance Factory was established at Wah cantonment to produce small arms, ammunition and explosives. After 1965, Pakistan, apart from shifting its overwhelming arms supplies reliance from the US to China and other western countries like France; also began to concentrate on expanding its defence production facilities. In this, it received effusive assistance from... (GunPolicy.org)

A small, scratched metal can thrown on the ground created Brazil's first diplomatic embarrassment of 2012. The canister of tear gas had been collected by pro-democracy activists in Bahrain. Stamped across the can in blue was a Brazilian flag and the words 'MADE IN BRAZIL.'
One year had passed since Bahrain became the stage for pro-democracy protests by the majority Shiites against the Sunni monarchy commanded by king Hamad bin-Isa Khalifa. The protesters had been... (GunPolicy.org)

MOSCOW/BEIRUT - Russia faces a growing international outcry over its arms sales to Syria but shows no sign of bowing to pressure and has even increased deliveries of arms that critics say are helping keep President Bashar al-Assad in power.
The biggest importer of arms to Syria, Russia sold Damascus nearly $1 billion worth of arms including missile systems last year, while shipments of hard-to-track Russian small weapons have risen since the uprising against Assad... (GunPolicy.org)

WINDHOEK - Young men in Southern Africa are at the greatest risk of cold-blooded murder, while women in the region are more likely than others from around the world to be killed in domestic violence, a UN agency says.
The statistics from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) come as the region battles to contain the proliferation of gun-related crimes.
Experts have said gun-related crime is a major problem in South Africa and Swaziland, and is on the rise in... (GunPolicy.org)

UNITED NATIONS - Negotiators on Friday narrowly averted the collapse of talks on a world arms trade treaty to regulate the $55 billion global weapons market, agreeing on ground rules for negotiations after days of procedural wrangling.
Delegates and advocates for tougher oversight of global arms sales said the agreement set the stage for a monthlong conference in July to draft the treaty.
Arms control campaigners say one person every minute dies as a result of armed... (GunPolicy.org)

The global arms trade, which produces two bullets for every person on the planet every year and the weapons that kill 1,500 people each day, is facing the first worldwide effort to control it. An unprecedented treaty that would attempt to restrict arms sales is expected to be drawn up at talks in the United Nations this week.
A campaign for such an agreement, begun six years ago by Nobel laureates, faces attempts by the United States and Russia to water the treaty... (GunPolicy.org)

BEIJING - The government is to crack down on the illegal possession of guns and explosives following a recent spate of armed robberies nationwide.
"We will concentrate on tackling crimes involving serious violence and other prominent criminal activities in order to strengthen security in cities and maintain social order and overall stability," said Huang Ming, deputy minister of public security, announcing the campaign against gun crime.
There has been a series of... (GunPolicy.org)

LONDON - Russian and Chinese arms are being used to violate human rights in Darfur region in breach of an "ineffectual" United Nations embargo, Amnesty International said on Thursday.
Amnesty said Russia and China are supplying weapons to Sudan's government despite evidence they are being used against civilians in Darfur, where the U.N. estimates as many as 300,000 people have died since 2003 from violence, hunger or disease.
"China and Russia are selling arms to the... (GunPolicy.org)

British prosecutors recently vowed to pursue a legal case involving the shipment of large cache of weapons, allegedly from China and destined for Nigeria, after a London judge threw it out.
Those involved in the trade are said to be British and German arms dealers. Mr Gary Hyde, a 42-year old retired British volunteer police officer, is accused of conspiring with his German business partner Karl Kleber for the illegal shipment of 40,000 Ak47 assault rifles, 30,000... (GunPolicy.org)